As is known, MPEG (motion picture expert group) audio and video compression was developed for storing and distributing digital video and audio signals. There are currently multiple versions of MPEG standards including MPEG 1, MPEG 2, MPEG 4, and MPEG 7 with more versions likely to come. The first of the MPEG standards, MPEG 1, was developed for use with video compact disks (CDs), which have a bit rate of 1.416 megabits per second, of which 1.15 megabits was for video. MPEG 2 was developed to cover a wider range of applications including high definition television, progressive scan videos, interlaced videos, DVDs, and digital standard definition television. Such various digital formats have bit rates ranging from 1.5 megabits per second to 60 megabits per second. MPEG 4 uses an object-based approach where scenes are modeled as compositions of objects, both natural and synthetic, with which the user may interact. Visual objects in a scene are described mathematically and given a position in 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional space. Similarly, audio objects are placed in sound space. This enables the audio and video objects to be defined once and enables the viewer to change his or her viewing positions of the video and/or audio objects. MPEG 7 standardizes the description of multimedia material such as still pictures, audio and video regardless of whether the data is stored locally, in remote databases or is broadcasted.
Regardless of the MPEG standard used, the basic architecture for an MPEG encoder and an MPEG decoder are similar. For example, an MPEG encoder includes a motion compensation function, discrete cosine transform (DCT) function, quantization function, a zig-zag scan function, and an encoding function, such as run-length encoding or Huffman encoding. The motion compensation function retrieves macro blocks of data from memory for a particular frame of video. As is known, a frame of MPEG video may include an intra (I) frame, a predicted (P) frame, and/or a bi-directional (B) frame. The motion compensation function utilizes motion vectors, which specify where to retrieve a macro block of a previously decoded frame, to remove temporal redundancies between B and P frames.
The discrete cosine transform function receives the compensated macro block and performs a discrete cosine transform function thereon, where the discrete cosine transform function essentially filters the motion compensated macro block of data utilizing a plurality of coefficients organized in a matrix. The result of the discrete cosine transform function is a discrete cosine transform matrix.
The quantization function receives the discrete cosine transform matrix and, utilizing a quantization matrix, or table, quantizes the DCT matrix to limit the number of allowed values for each coefficient. As is known, the quantization function is a primary source for loss in any compression process.
The quantized data is then rendered in a zig-zag manner to produce a linear stream of data. The linear stream of data is then encoded using a run-length encoding, Huffman encoding et cetera process to produce the MPEG encoded data. An MPEG decoder includes similar components configured to perform the reverse function in the reverse order as the MPEG encoder.
Since the quantization function is a primary source for loss in MPEG encoding, a quantization table is selected to provide an accepted level of loss (i.e., an accepted video quality) for worst case encoding conditions (e.g., fast moving action within a video). While this ensures acceptable levels of video quality, it comes with the cost of processing more data than is needed in most cases (i.e., when worst case encoding conditions are not encountered). This over processing is exasperated when multiple video programs are being encoded. The same issue arises for all types of video and/or audio compression, including JPEG, MJPEG, et cetera.
Therefore, a need exists for a video and/or audio encoding method and apparatus that maintains a desired level of quality while reducing processing requirements.